16 February 1915 February is not a time of year where one may easily wander the Downlands with a Latin text in hand. If the pages are not blown asunder, they are rendered into sodden masses of the original pulp, and in either event, are difficult to manipulate by half-frozen fingers. So—needs must—I have…
Read MoreDreaming Spies! —is out in the world today—huzzah! But before you all hunker down with your shiny new hardbacks (sooo pretty….) or your crisp new downloads, let’s celebrate today’s book launch that makes winners out of all of Mary Russell’s admirers by noting the winners of our…
Read More(Mary Russell’s War will show up on Wednesday this week.) From Dreaming Spies: As the shops thinned and gardens peeped between the houses, we neared what could only be a ryokan. Ancient wood, well-maintained thatch, raked gravel, and a small and perfectly spontaneous garden on either side of the entrance. Everything—thatch, gate, stones, tree bark—…
Read MoreFrom Dreaming Spies: The Library’s policy [was] enshrined in the oath’s second declaration: item neque ignem nec flammam in bibliothecam inlaturum vel in ea accensurum; “not to bring into the Library, or kindle therein, any fire or flame.” ….I had to agree, that when it came to Duke Humfrey’s library, a tinder- dry piece…
Read MoreFrom Dreaming Spies: And that sweet city with her dreaming spires, She needs not June for beauty’s heightening. In the middle of the nineteenth century, poet Matthew Arnold visited a friend who lived in a tiny village on a hill three miles from Oxford. Boar’s Hill pastoral poem Thyrsis describes the view from a small…
Read MoreFrom Dreaming Spies: …the dank and draughty confines of His Majesty’s Prison, Oxford, a part of the castle complex dating back to the eleventh century. The Empress Matilda had escaped over the frozen Thames, but then, she had a great deal of help from within. A map of the castle, from Wikipedia. (In fact, Mary…
Read MoreFrom Dreaming Spies: The Bodleian Library is one of the glories of the Western world— although, if the world (and the University) was a fair place, the institution would be called the “Ball Library,” after the wealthy widow Thomas Bodley had married. It was Ann Ball’s money (inherited from a trader in pilchards) that restored…
Read MoreFrom Dreaming Spies: That every wretch, pining and pale before, Beholding him, plucks comfort from his looks; A largess universal, like the sun His liberal eye doth give to every one, Thawing cold fear . . . A little touch of Harry in the night. At the early stages of a book, a writer plays…
Read MoreFrom Dreaming Spies: There are many, many layers covering a Japanese woman, which goes far to explain the lack of heat in the houses. I doubt many women here managed without assistance, but I did not even try, merely stood with my arms out and let the maid push me around and bundle me like…
Read More9 February 1915 My blessed solitude, broken only by the occasional presence of Mrs Mark inside and the sounds of Patrick Mason out, could not last. Indeed, I was fortunate to be granted as many days as I was. But in the end, my aunt descended upon Sussex, bringing with her many trunks and…
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